


(to wander down the) road not taken

by shineyma



Series: where we belong [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 02:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13894329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: Jemma gets a surprise (return) visitor.





	(to wander down the) road not taken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jdphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/gifts).



> This fic is dedicated to my dearest and darlingest JD, who's had a stressful few days and deserves some fic love <3 <3 <3
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! <3
> 
>  **ETA:** please note that this is a sequel fic! You can definitely (I think) UNDERSTAND this fic if you don't read the other one first, but you'll be missing a lot of, hm, nuance. So you might wanna give that one a read first, if you haven't already.

Jemma’s not quite awake and not quite asleep, dozing in the slow space where it could be minutes or hours since she lay down, when the door opens.

The sound rouses her slightly, but she’s so comfortable and so tired that she can’t muster up the will to move. Even the dip of the mattress as Grant settles on the edge of the bed can’t counter the sheer weight of sleep pressing down on her.

What _does_ counter it, if only very slightly, is the realization that if Grant’s home already, it’s much later than she would’ve guessed.

“Time is it?” she mumbles into her pillow.

Even through her layers of quilts, she can feel his warmth as he leans over her to reposition the fuzzy throw that’s slipped away from her cozy nest. “A little after three.”

Half-formed, dreamy thoughts of enticing him into bed slip away in her surprise. He reminded her several times before he left this morning that he wouldn’t be home until seven at the very earliest.

“Wuz wrong?” she—well, slurs a bit. Oops. Though she’s more awake, she’s no less exhausted for it. “Did something happen?”

“Everything’s fine.” Grant runs his fingers through her hair, gentle and soothing. “I just wanted to check in. Go back to sleep.”

She could, certainly. The warmth of his presence, the slow pass of his fingers through her hair, the irresistible pull of slumber that’s kept her in bed all day—she could be asleep in seconds, if she let herself.

But there’s something…something about his touch…

With a truly ridiculous amount of effort, Jemma opens her eyes to look at the man above her, and sure enough—

“You’re not my Grant.”

He freezes, even his fingers halting mid-motion, and for a second, he’s so completely still that she almost doubts herself.

Then he laughs. “Busted.” He swings his legs up onto the bed and relaxes back against the headboard, the perfect picture of comfort in her bed. “How’d you know?”

“I’m not sure,” she says, and reluctantly—she’s so tired, she feels as though gravity has quadrupled to physically weigh her down and keep her where she is—pushes herself up. “The way you touched me—I just knew.”

“Your me doesn’t play with your hair?” he asks, frowning a little.

“No, he does.” She struggles briefly for words, a way to quantify it somehow, and then gives up. “It’s just different, that’s all. You’re him, but you’re not. I could just…tell.”

Were she any less tired, she thinks, she wouldn’t be anywhere near so composed. She and her Grant both decided to pretend this one’s visit never happened, and they’ve stuck firmly to that agreement; most of the time, she honestly forgets that she ever had visitors from another reality.

It’s rather rude of this Grant to come along and smash right through her denial.

“Huh,” he says, mulling that over. “I think I’m touched.” He gives her that devastating grin that her Grant used to charm her the very first day they met—so like him and so not. “You’re adorable.”

“Yes,” she agrees. She’s also _freezing_ , now that she’s disturbed her cocoon of blankets by sitting up; she tries briefly to rearrange them for maximum warmth, fails, and gives up. “What are you doing here? Where’s the other me?”

“Better question.” Grant reaches out and somehow—she’s simply too fuzzy to follow it precisely—manages to totally rewrap her blankets in a few deft tugs. “Where’s the other _me_?”

She blinks at him, puzzled by his clear displeasure. “At work?”

“Seriously?” he asks and, though she’s now quite comfortable, tugs a bit more at her blankets. “He can afford to live in this big fancy house but can’t afford missing work to take care of his sick fiancée?”

“Wife,” she corrects automatically—and then the rest of what he’s said processes, and she finds herself smiling rather sappily at him. “Awww, you think he’s neglecting me.”

He is _fussing_ over her and _judging her husband_ for not being here to do it instead. That’s adorable.

“He _is_ neglecting you,” Grant says, and gives a suspicious glare to the tray on her bedside table. “Those crackers don’t look like they’ve been touched. Have you even eaten today?”

“No, I—” She interrupts herself with a brief giggle, because it’s just so _cute_ , this Grant who is not her Grant getting annoyed by his other self not properly taking care of her, but forces herself to stay on track—“I’m not _sick_ , Grant. I’m pregnant.”

“You’re—?” He stops and shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. “What, really?”

“Really.”

His eyes drop to her stomach, focus narrowing in like he has some sort of x-ray vision and can just see right through her blankets and her layers and her _skin_ to the fragile life beginning within her.

“Grant?” she prompts—around a yawn—after a good thirty seconds of this.

“Sorry.” He shakes his head and gives her an apologetic smile. “That’s just—wow. All the universes we’ve been to, you—we—haven’t had kids in any of ’em. Guess I never really thought about the possibility. Congratulations.”

The last bit is a kind sentiment, but her attention’s rather taken up by the rest of it. “Really? No children at all?”

“Not a one,” he says, and her heart drops.

Last time they were here, he said that he and her double had been to more than _twenty_ universes. It’s been months since then, and Grant, at least, is obviously still traveling. Who knows how many universes he’s visited since? How many has he visited in total? More than thirty, certainly—likely _much_ more.

And in all those universes, with all their possibilities…she hasn’t had a child in _any_ of them. Not one.

What if this means she’s destined to miscarry? What if she has a genetic predisposition to miscarriage? Or, perhaps even worse, stillbirth? What if—what if there’s no way—

“Hey, hey,” Grant says, and in seconds has manhandled her _and_ her mass of blankets right into his lap. “None of that, okay? Don’t freak out.”

“Who’s freaking out?” she asks…through her tears. Drat. “I’m fine. It’s just—”

“It’s just _nothing_ ,” he says, rather forcefully. “Look, I told you this universe was too domestic for me, right?”

“Yes?”

“I wasn’t kidding.” He hugs her close—or as close as he can while she’s still _burritoed_ , as her Grant has taken to calling it. (So far, pregnancy has been nothing at all like it was advertised—rather than morning sickness, she has all-day-chills-and-exhaustion.) “This is the only universe I’ve seen where you’re all settled in the suburbs—you’re an _eye doctor_ , for fuck’s sake. Most of the other yous work for SHIELD; not exactly a kid-friendly career.”

She can’t help sniffling a little, but she does allow this new information to distract her. “SHIELD?”

“Global spy agency,” Grant says dismissively. _Dismissively_! Like the news that she’s a _spy_ in other universes (not just in other universes, in the _majority of_ other universes!) is nothing! “Point is, there are plenty of reasons those other yous wouldn’t have kids, okay? They lead dangerous lives that are nothing like yours. So you just worry about baby Ward in there and not about what I’ve—what?”

He’s stopped because she’s staring at him, of course. It’s terribly rude, but she can’t seem to stop. It’s just…she truly wasn’t expecting that.

“What?” he repeats. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Ward?” she asks. “You still use your biological father’s name?”

“Uh, yeah?” He gives her an odd look, likely very similar to the one she’s giving him. “Who else’s name would I use?”

Jemma thinks her heart might actually, physically crack a tiny bit at that. He’s honestly confused, which means—

“You were never adopted, were you?”

“ _Adopted_?” Grant echoes.

“I’m so sorry.” She wiggles far enough out of her blankets to hug him properly—a quick, fierce squeeze of sympathy. “Were you just in foster care the whole time, or…?”

She tears up again just thinking about it, about the horrible stories Daisy’s shared with her while drunk and her poor Grant, bounced from house to house with no Phil or Melinda or Daisy to love him.

“Whoa,” Grant says, and pushes her gently away. “I was never in foster care. My parents shipped me off to military school when I was fifteen and I never looked back.”

That’s even _worse_! Stuck with those horrible, abusive people for all those years and then being _abandoned_ to military school—!

But he’s looking uncomfortable already, and it’s not as though getting upset about it now will change what happened then. Better to move on—and in more ways than one.

“Well, my Grant was adopted as a child,” she says as she shifts off of this Grant’s lap. It was very kind of him to comfort her the way he did, but she’s calmer now and would prefer not to be in such an intimate position with a man not her husband. The other half of the bed will do just fine for her. “He took his father’s name, as did I when we married.”

“Lucky guy,” Grant says, leaning back against the headboard once more. It’s a move that intends to be causal but isn’t quite; Jemma decides not to point that out.

“Anyway,” she says, and sheds a few of her blankets. The cold isn’t too bad, and it’s nice to have a little fresh air on her skin. “You never answered _my_ questions, you know.”

“Which questions were those?” he asks.

“What are you doing here? Where’s the other me?”

“Oh, right,” he says. “We ended up in this universe where I was…I don’t know. Magic or something? He had _some_ kind of powers—and he turned out to be the jealous type. When he saw me with my Jemma, he threw some kind of—” He gestures vaguely. “—thing at me. Then I was here.”

As far as explanations go, it’s lacking in several areas and raises _far_ more questions than it answers. But—spurred perhaps by the same stunned denial that saw her and her Grant decide to pretend the first visit never happened—she decides she’d rather not seek clarification. There are only so many sci-fi bizarrities she can take.

Instead, she asks, “And the other me?”

“Still in that universe, I guess.” He shrugs. “She has the ’verse hopper, so…all I can really do is wait for her to come find me. Or not, as the case may be, but there are people who’d be pretty unhappy with her if she came home without me. I’m betting she’ll put in the effort.”

Jemma stares at him, not sure which to address first: his casual attitude or the fact he thinks it possible her double would _abandon him to another universe_. She knew they didn’t get along—the immediate assumption Grant was abusing her proved that well enough—but _goodness_.

“You know,” he says before she can choose, “I’ve been here a while.” His fingers drum on his thigh. “I recognized the house when I landed here, and it was so quiet, I figured no one was home. So I did some looking around.”

There’s a heavy pause—the sort her Grant uses when he’s in the mood to be dramatic. Jemma waits it out.

“You have a lot of pictures,” he finally says. “And I have to ask…that name you took wouldn’t happen to be Coulson, would it?”

“It would,” she confirms, brightening a bit. She loves (her) Grant’s family; she could talk about them all day. “You know Phil?”

“I do.” Grant cracks his neck. “We don’t really get along.”

It’s odd, but something about—she doesn’t even know. His tone? His bearing? The easy way he’s slumped back against her headboard? Whatever it is, whatever the cause…

Out of nowhere, he actually appears quite threatening.

Not to _Jemma_ , though. It’s not as though she feels unsafe! Somehow, she’s perfectly confident that this Grant would never hurt her, any more than her own Grant would. It’s just that—it’s just that _something_ is raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Something is whispering in her ear, “This is a man who kills people.”

Which is silly, really. Her Grant has taken lives—he was in the army before he became a police officer, and he’s never tried to hide what that means. Perhaps it’s just…

She never understood before: there’s a difference between a dangerous man and a man who does dangerous things. Her Grant is the latter; this one, she suddenly sees, is very much the former.

Hm.

“Well,” she says, shaking off all of that. What’s important is that she _does_ trust he won’t hurt _her_ , whoever else might be in danger. “I’m sorry to hear that. Do you get along with Melinda?”

Grant’s smile is wry. “That’d be his mom?”

“He’d say stepmother, but yes.”

“And his sister,” he says. “Skye? Daisy?”

“Daisy,” she confirms, wondering at the first option.

Grant doesn’t offer any clarification. Instead, he goes dead silent and perfectly still. The hairs on the back of her neck rise once more, and she fancies she can actually see a storm cloud brewing over his head. She doesn’t know what it might bring, but the way the thickening silence tightens like a string puts her heart in her throat.

And then, unexpectedly, he laughs, snapping the humming tension. It’s no quiet chuckle, either; he’s practically hooting with it. Totally lost, Jemma can only wait him out—and nibble on a cracker, for her own Grant’s sake. Though she hasn’t been nauseous, she _has_ been utterly without appetite, and she knows he’s worried.

“Stepmom and sister,” this Grant finally gasps, wiping away actual tears of laughter. “Stepmom and fucking _sister_ , I can’t even—does he have another sister named Kara? Go on, you can tell me.”

“No?” Jemma half-asks. Which is silly (the answer is _definitely_ no), but she’s just…very thrown. “What’s so funny?”

He huffs another laugh, but thankfully limits himself to just that. “You know what, sweetheart, I’m gonna do you a favor and not answer that question.”

“…Thank you?” she guesses.

“You’re welcome,” he says, pairing a firm nod with a pat to her knee. “Trust me, you’d never be able to unhear it, so…yeah.”

“But I’ll also never be able to _hear_ it if you leave this universe without telling me,” she points out. “Are you really going to force me to live with this curiosity forever?”

Not that she particularly _wants_ to know—in all honesty, the world he lives in is just too _strange_ for her; there’s a reason she and her Grant have spent all these months pretending that first visit never happened—but she feels the need to argue nonetheless.

Perhaps Grant realizes it’s an empty protest, because his answer is a simple, “Yep.”

Jemma pauses, expecting more, and gently prods him with one socked foot when it doesn’t come. “Rude.”

“That’s me,” he says. He catches her foot when she goes to nudge him again. “But I’m not the one going around kicking strange men.”

“No,” she agrees. “You’re just the man who invited himself into a strange woman’s bed. A strange _sleeping_ woman, at that.”

He laughs under his breath. “Got me there.”

“What was that about, anyway?” she asks, even as she marvels at her own reaction. Certainly no one could fault her for being angry or threatened by a stranger—even a stranger so much like her husband—making himself comfortable on her bed while she slept…and yet, still, even now that she’s woken up a bit, she can only feel safe with him.

“I was worried,” he says with a little shrug. “Like I said, I’ve been here a while—and I never heard a sound. When I opened the door and realized you’d been up here the whole time…”

He really is adorable. “Well, I appreciate the concern. Thank you.”

“Oh, trust me.” The lecherous grin he gives her is so over-the-top, it can only be meant to make her laugh. “The pleasure was all mine.”

Jemma is just opening her mouth to counter that when Grant stiffens, his head snapping to the door. One hand extends back towards her, clearly indicating that she should remain in place, and he swings his legs off the bed to brace his feet against the floor, preparing—she thinks—to spring into action.

Then, just as quickly, he relaxes.

“About time,” he mutters, and all of Jemma’s many questions are answered when the door opens to reveal her other self.

Her immediately displeased other self, at that. “Oh, _honestly_.”

“Missed you too, honey!” Grant says, bouncing to his feet. “How’d it go?”

“Fine,” her double sniffs, giving him a more disdainful look than Jemma honestly believes she could manage. “No thanks to you and your provocation. What were you doing on her _bed_?”

“Catching up!” he says brightly. “And you will _never guess_ —”

“I’m so sorry,” her double says over him, speaking—with all apparent earnestness—to Jemma. “As if being married to one Ward isn’t bad enough, having another just _invade_ your bedroom—”

“Coulson,” Grant corrects.

Her double frowns at him. “What about him?”

“No, I mean, she’s not married to a _Ward_ ,” he explains—or teases, really. It’s plain his words are meant more to ruffle feathers than provide clarification. “In this universe, Coulson adopted and raised me.”

Jemma’s double stares at him.

“Oh, it gets better,” he says happily. “Her me’s sister and stepmom are Skye and May.”

The sound her double makes is halfway between a scoff and a laugh—a sound so mired in disbelief, even its originator doesn’t know quite what to express. Jemma’s made the sound a few times herself; it’s odd being on this side of it.

“Well,” her double says. “That’s…well.”

“ _Right_?” he asks, appearing delighted to have his own strange reaction validated. “And—”

“I’m pregnant,” Jemma interrupts, in the feeling that he’s having rather too much fun with all of it.

Her double looks…well, there’s no other word for it. She’s _sickened_ by the news.

“You—with _him_?” she demands, pointing at Grant.

“With my version of him, yes,” Jemma confirms, and her double does a full-body shudder.

“Ugh,” she says. “Ugh!” She shudders again, then fumbles in the backpack slung over her shoulder. “Ward, we’re leaving.”

Grant rolls his eyes. “What she means to say is congratulations.”

Jemma’s double gestures threateningly with the strange blue device she’s just pulled from the backpack.

“I have just been through _twelve universes_ trying to find you,” she hisses. “I can and will knock you unconscious if it gets us through the next twelve without incident.”

“So what you’re saying is,” Grant says, “you missed me.”

For a moment, Jemma thinks her double will actually hit Grant; instead, she presses a button on her device with quite a lot of force.

“We’re leaving,” she says again, as the cloud they travel with begins to form behind her. “Now shut. Up.”

He makes a show of zipping his lips, and Jemma’s double turns to face her.

“Congratulations on your child,” she says, with all appearance of sincerity. “But please don’t feel this binds you to _him_ forever. There’s a man named Will Daniels—he’ll love you completely _and_ make an excellent stepfather. Think about it.”

“Um,” says Jemma, who has no intention of doing any such thing. Regardless of what her double may think, she’s very happy with Grant. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” her double says, and turns to give Grant a shove. “Let’s go.”

“Take care of yourself, sweetheart,” Grant tells Jemma. “And congrats again!”

“Thank you,” she says—with rather more warmth this time.

Her other self growls—not a sound Jemma realized she was capable of—and drags Grant through the cloud. In seconds, it dissipates, leaving Jemma alone in her bedroom.

She sits there for a heartbeat—two—three—thinking of everything that just happened.

…No. No, it’s all too strange.

“I’m going back to sleep,” she decides and, wrapping herself in her blanket cocoon once more, does exactly that.


End file.
